


An Arrow Splintered

by whiteraven1606



Series: Arrows in Flight [5]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 17:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteraven1606/pseuds/whiteraven1606
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Both Diggle and Tommy aren't speaking to Oliver. Felicity tries to help in her own way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Arrow Splintered

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to be on an Arrow kick lately. I'm writing these after each episode I watch now. (I went through half the season in one day and then I've been going about one episode every eight days or so. I keep pausing and doing other things.) While I might mention the canon ships I do not intend on shipping anyone within this series. Just so you know. :) Thank you for giving this series a try.

****

Oliver dropped to sit in the chair Diggle had vacated as Felicity moved up beside him.

"What just happened?"

Oliver tapped his fist against his thigh. "He quit."

"What?" Felicity frowned as she came to stand in front of him. "He can't...well, I suppose he just did, but Oliver..."

"Felicity...could you just...go home for tonight?"

She turned and put her purse down in front of her computer screens. "Nope, nothing doing." She got her chair and rolled it over. "You told me once if I needed to talk about my day to someone it could be you."

Oliver closed his eyes and sighed. "I know and I meant it, but not right now, please."

"Not where I was going with that." She nudged his foot with her toe. "How was your day?"

Oliver snorted. "Kind of crappy."

Felicity nodded. "Yeah, sounds like it. What happened besides Diggle being mad at you for picking the kid over him?"

Oliver grimaced. "He told me I picked Laurel over him, not the boy."

"Well, that was just stupid."

"What?"

She frowned and shook her head. "Look, Oliver, Diggs is really angry right now. You know how you say stuff when you are really mad and then later you look back on it and cringe?"

"I don't think Diggle will cringe about what he said."

"Maybe, maybe not." Felicity turned and dug into her purse. "Diggle almost died. He would have if Deadshot hadn't just left him semi-conscious." She pulled out a small book. "This is for you."

Oliver took it and opened it up to find it was blank. "Why?"

"You make awkward look relaxed sometimes, you know?"

He gave her an exasperated look. "Felicity."

She waved her hand at him. "I'm just saying. You look like you want to be anywhere else a lot of the time. The journal is for you to write about anything not this." She gestured to include all of level.

"You are assuming I want a written record of me floating around."

"No, well, not exactly. Look, you've come back to a tangle of a relationship and having everything strained with Diggle would just make it worse for you, which in turn makes you more tense, which freaks out people on a subconscious level and they tense up. You tense up more because of that, round and round until my head explodes from the tension. So..." She lifted her eyebrows. "Write so my head won't explode?"

He smiled a little and tapped his fingertips on the cover of the journal. "I'll think about it."

"Awesome." She shrugged as Oliver gave her a weird look. "What? That's the best I can expect out of you. Now, I'm going to try to track Deadshot so you can either kill him or let Diggle do it. I'd say kill him yourself because it won't actually help Diggle in the long run." She glanced at him and then turned to her computers. "Nevemind me. I didn't say a thing."

Oliver took the journal with him as he headed back home.

****

Oliver blinked at Laurel standing on his doorstep. "Laurel?"

She turned, tear streaks down her face. "Oliver, I don't know what to do."

He cupped her shoulders and let her bury her head in his chest. "Okay. Alright, what's wrong?"

"Tommy... He said he hadn't changed and he'd just hurt me more if we kept on."

Oliver grit his teeth as he tucked Laurel against his chest, her head under his chin. "You don't believe him?"

She shook her head against him. "No. He was lying, but I don't know why. I just...I don't know what to do, Ollie."

Oliver patted her on the back as Thea slipped up the front steps around them. "What did you do now, Ollie?"

Oliver made a face at her. "I didn't do anything, Thea."

Thea blinked and then waggled her fingers at them. "Then what's this? You two cheating on Tommy?"

Laurel tired to lift her head, but Oliver held her in place as he made a wide eyed no face at Thea. 

"No. Thea, you are not helping here."

She grinned and turned towards the front door. "Fine, deny the love that pours off you both, go ahead."

Oliver didn't let Laurel go until the front door had closed. "Don't mind her."

Laurel looked up at him. "Oliver?"

He shook his head. "No. Just no. Alright? I can't..." He took a deep breath and turned partway away from Laurel. "I'll help you get Tommy to quit being stupid, but that's all."

Laurel brushed her hair behind her ear. "Uhm...Okay. Why do you think that's what I want?"

Oliver frowned. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Laurel bit her lip and touched his forearm. "Oliver, do you...still love me?"

Oliver huffed and looked anywhere except at her. "What did I say, Laurel? I said I'm not going to do this. Tommy must have saw us in the hallway last night and thought I was trying to draw you away from him. He's just not thinking straight."

Laurel blinked and stepped back. "Right. Tommy."

Oliver touched her shoulders. "I'll talk to him and make sure he understands he has nothing to fear from me. We'll see if that helps."

She nodded as she wrapped her arms around herself. "Sure. Thanks, Oliver."

****

Oliver nestled himself against his tree and took out the blank journal Felicity had given him. "I don't think writing is going to help me, tree. I have alienated my best friend and one of the few of my other friends. Six adults are dead because I made choices that lead to their deaths."

He opened the journal and pulled a pen from his pocket. "It isn't my fault. Deadshot killed those agents and our bodyguards where killed by an assassin. All I did wrong was not making sure of Deadshot's demise the first time around."

He wrote 'failure to follow through' down and closed his journal. He pursed his lips as he thought about it. "This might be more worthwhile than I thought."

He slipped the book into a plastic ziplock bag and put it under a stone near the tree's spreading roots. Then he headed to the club to see if Felicity had found anything yet.

****

Diggle sat at his window and stared out it. He shouldn't have said Oliver picked Laurel over him. That had been a lower blow than he'd told himself he'd ever take given how fragile Oliver seemed sometimes.

"Stupid. I should have known Deadshot wouldn't take the bait." He ran his hand down his face. "Oliver saved a kid, John. That should have been enough for you. We'll get Deadshot."

He shook his head. "Damn, I just said 'we' like I'm going to forgive the rich little bastard." Diggle leaned his bruised eyebrow into the glass and reveled in the small pain that shot through his head from it. "John, you've seen the look he gets when he makes choices he thinks are going to suck either way. He had that look on when he saw you."

Diggle knocked his head gently against the glass. "And I'm still pissed at him."

****

Tommy sat down in his hotel room and sobbed. It had hurt to say that he'd not really changed to Laurel. He knew why Oliver got that horrible look on his face every so often now. Tommy knew he'd had the same sort of expression on his face as he walked out of Laurel's apartment.

The thought that he'd let Laurel go so that she could have the man she really wanted didn't help one damn bit.

****


End file.
